Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Singing talent show

Location - A tempo traveller (from JP Nagar to Banashankari)
Time - 30th August, 6:40pm to 7:30pm
Particpants - Hidden Budding singers

Wondering what nonsense this is? It was No nonsense stuff.
I never knew that there were such good singers in my vicinity. Yesterday again, we got josh and forced a guy to sing a song. This triggered some more talents to come front. The cab was filled with music. English, Hindi, Kannada songs with wrong lyrics (ofcourse, none of them are professional singers) were sung. Neene neene from Akash, Hai Ajnabi from Dil Se, Bhayada Lakshmi Baramma, a classical song from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam were topped by Bryan Adam's Summer of 69.

Now there is plan to organise a 'Sangeetha rasa-sanje' on one day in one of our homes. The particpants are all there, only the time and location is to be decided.
After the morning arguments over women reservation, this was a welcome and pleasurable break.

Monday, August 29, 2005

T- shirt captions

I had been to the Shoppers Stop on Sunday. It was raining outside and I just had to hide in some place and so entered this shop. It can be renamed to Stoppers Shop ;-). As I was just posing as a really interested shopper, I entered the T shirt section. There were 2-3 racks of tantra T-shirts, which had some slogans on it. Some of them were very good. I remember some good and bad ones and wanted to jot it down here.

"If animals are not to be eaten, why is their flesh called meat"
"Dhobhiwala - The only person who can tell your wife 'Kapde nikhal kar rako madam, mein aajatha hoon' "
"I am disturbed" with a key hole on the shirt.
"Man's biggest erection for love - Via Agra" with a Taj Mahal.
"Army needs men. So do I".
"Kalakar" with a picture of painted, flowery car.
"God created me, just for you".
"If you cant read this, just come near" written in very small font alongside the chest.
Some chinese characters "You get a punch in the nose, if you ask what this means".

Interesting!

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Monsoon party

The monsoon party is over. Hopefully the monsoon is not.
Thursday evening was a party evening for us. We had a Page 3 party.

The party started off with 9 teams showing their cat-walking skills and designing skills. The themes were just very good.
The best theme was the rowdy stuff (of course according to me and not according to judges). The rowdy theme started with guys sporting black jackets and briefcases blowing smoke into air as they came on the ramp. Then came the Indian rowdies. Beedi smoking, banian clad, lungi wrapped, 'long' holding street goons. The background music was amazing. Started off with the latest craze in Kannada - Hodimaga and ended with Sarkar's Govinda. I was wondering if they could have put Kajra re from Bunty and Bubli. One prominent design missed out here was the khadi dons.
The best theme award went to the more patriotic and most common one - "Indian dresses". People with different dresses of different state. The dress representing Bihar was Jeans and white shirt. Apart from the Gujarti dress nothing was special.
The overall award went to the "Checks". The dresses were really good. Hair styles were special. Guys wore school uniform skirts and looked like Scots. The ladies looked like small school girls. Some creativity indeed.

After burning the ramps, the DJ took over and for the next 2+ hrs it was hip and butt shaking music. The stage could not take the load of the huge number of people who sweated for his music. So came the bodyguards for the stage and the disco was staged on the floor. Punjabi music with some raunchy remixes made most of the people swing, until the food was served and the first shuttles started to leave at 9pm.

But then the show started for the cab boys. The party never ends with the boys of my shuttle. We sang in chorus through the way for almost an hour. Language barriers were broken as we sang Kannada, Hindi, English and even Sanskrit numbers. It was interesting to watch the people in signals having a peep at our window as we sung "Ee Limbe hanniantha hudugi..".
It was 10:30pm when I landed in my bed flat for a great slumber.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

'Mangal Pandey - The Rising'...Waste of time

Ketan Mehta has to learn a lot from Rajkumar Santoshi. Ketan has directed an absolute dabba movie.
My points on this movie -
1. Lot of unneccessary characters. Only the director can explain why Amisha is there is the movie. She is there to make some romance with the Britisher. There are some not neccessary village characters, rather they are not used properly.
2. Really very less coverage is given to the actual 'Rising'. 'The Rising' actually starts in the 2nd half and seems to move fast. But then the road bumpers come in the name of songs. This has diluted the theme further.
3. When you go for such a movie, one does not expect to see some exotic sets. The patriotic feeling should be aroused from the viewers. Ketan Mehta has miserably failed in this. Even the scene where Mangal is hanged does not arouse any special feeling. Watch the 'Legend of Bhagat Singh'. When the heroes are taken from their cells to the place where they are hanged, I remember that there were goose pimples all over the body. When I came out of the theatre, I still had a different feeling. This film does not generate that feeling.
4. Cheap jokes and shots spoil the serious theme of the movie. Was there a need to show the fan-man fantasising the Angrez ghori? Was there a need to show people having sex? Was there a need to show Kiran Kher in such a deep dress? Absolute stupid item song! Ketan Mehta has tried to please the masses, but fails in that too.
5. The first half tries to showcase the social setup during the 1850s. Also highlights the events that eventually end up as the 1st battle of Independence. Though the events are shown well, this is a bit drag. So there is less time to show the actual Rising.
6. At the end of the day, you did not learn anything new and good about Mangal. Whatever we have read about him in one paragraph of history is shown here.

What has Ketan Mehta to learn from Rajkumar Santoshi (director of "Legend of Bhagat Singh").
1. Have a couple of soul stirring patriotic songs instead of some prostitute song and item songs.
2. Have a clean sense of comedy.
3. Have a real strong script and punch dialogues.
4. Hold the attention of the audience and take this attention to the peak at the last. The film starting as flash back is itself a flop idea i feel.
5. Do a strong research on the theme.

If you have better things to do on a weekend, avoid this movie.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Family planning and sex education

As most of my friends (of my age group) are getting married, the discussions nowadays have been on that topic only.
Yesterday, we had a discussion about family planning.

Christians are not supposed to use condoms. The Pope and the Vatican are against the use of condoms. Islam also does not recommend use of condoms. I asked the reason and the answer is "Semen is divine". Among Christians, the church organizes classes before marriage regarding these things. A doctor and a father will tell the bride and the groom about love, sex and the balance between them! The family planning methodology suggested is "sex in the safe period". There is a justification as well. One will learn to restrain and also learn the difference between love and sex. But the same doctor has told him that having sex at-least twice a week will provide emotional bonding between the couple. This is in sharp contrast. But wait there is a reply. During the initial days, do it when it is safe, then have children, then have operation to prevent more children and then start doing it twice a week!!!

Incase of Muslims, a senior member of the family gives a book just a day before marriage. This book talks all about marriage, human bodies and family planning. And this is given to the groom only.
To my surprise some guys had no idea about what the safe period is. India seriously needs serious sex education. People are really shy to talk about it and hence the knowledge is also very less. This will lead to unhealthy practices and population explosion. Some religions need to change their ideologies and encourage people to use contraceptives.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Bush and democracy !

I am back to blogging.
After very busy 2 weeks or so, I am getting some freetime now.

Just how stupid US President can be? Here is an example. This happened when Dr. Manmohan Singh visited the US on his official tour recently. Mr Bush was introducing Mr Singh to his wife Laura Bush. These are the exact statements he made.
"Laura, Mr Singh is Primeminister of India - a country with a billion people who are experimenting with democracy." What did he mean by experimenting? I am sure even he cannot answer this question. Looks like this statement was the prelude to the things to come. US did not support India's bid for a permanent seat in the UN security council. India being the world's largest democracy wanted it's voice to be heard...But the so called saviour of democracy, the US has other plans. On one US says it encorages democracy, but on the other it has hardly any good policy towards democratic developing nations.

Continuing with the introduction part, then came the punchline from Mr Bush. "They have 150 million muslims and not one has joined the al-Qaeda".